Erik Spoelstra fires back, after suspension of Udonis Haslem

Erik Spoelstra knew the subject of the day, the suspensions of Udonis Haslem (one game) and Dexter Pittman (three games). So, in his pre-shootaround press conference — which itself is a departure from the way the team usually does business — Spoelstra issued a statement before taking questions.

“We’ll accept the decision,” Spoelstra said. “We don’t agree with it. We totally support UD as a player and as a family member. He has supported his teammates and this Miami family for nine years. His reputation speaks for itself. He’s a hard-nosed player, a physical player, who is a clean player and he doesn’t play over that line.”

Spoelstra continued, without a question.

“The league does not have a problem with hard fouls on our two main guys,” he said. “In nine games now, there’s been over a dozen hard fouls to the face, some of the tomahawk variety, some of them have drawn blood. They don’t have a problem with it, so we don’t have a problem with it. Our guys will continue to attack, they will play their game, and we will focus on what we can control tonight, and that’s the game.”

What about Dexter Pittman?

“He’s a young player with a real promising future,” Spoelstra said. “He made a bad foul. It’s not indicative of anything else, other than him trying to be physical. There was no other statement that he was trying to make. It was a poor decision on his part. He’ll learn from it, and anything else that has to do with Dexter, we’ll handle behind closed doors. But obviously we don’t condone anything that doesn’t have to do with the game of basketball. From the start of the series, our focus has been on winning that game, and not any other game outside of that arena.”

Haslem was at the shootaround, but not made available to the media.

Neither he nor Pittman is allowed to be at the arena tonight.

Spoelstra reiterated that “we have enough” even without three frontcourt players, with Chris Bosh still back in Miami.

“We don’t think we go small when we play LeBron at the 4,” Spoelstra said. “He’s been playing that position a lot, anyway for us. So we don’t use that word, no. We are going to use our versatility.”

Asked about Larry Bird’s “s-o-f-t” characterization of the Pacers, and whether it could escalate matters, Spoelstra lashed back:

“Nobody can hide from this fact. This game and this series will be decided between those four lines, and within the guidelines of the NBA rules. And there’s been a lot of noise out there, there’s been a lot of chatter, and there’s been a lot of distractions, and everybody seems to have an opinion about it. Our guys only want to focus on the game. So his comments are irrelevant to what we’re trying to get done tonight.”

Dwyane Wade, when told of Spoelstra’s “dozen hard fouls” comment, said “no doubt, I felt them. But I’m going to keep going. Maybe at the end of this series, it will be 16. It is what it is.”

LeBron James said “I feel I get a hit a lot,” but would defer to Spoelstra as far as the numbers.

Asked whether Tyler Hansbrough should have been suspended for his foul of Wade, James made the point that if Hansbrough’s flagrant foul had been called a Flagrant 2 initially — instead of after an NBA upgrade — then Hansbrough would have been ejected on the spot, “meaning U.D. would have never fouled him, meaning U.D. would have never been suspended.”

“Hansbrough, it’s not the first time he went after one of our players this year,” said James, who was on the wrong end of a Hansbrough Flagrant 1 earlier this season. “You know, we have two guys suspended, and basically they have no one suspended.”

James disputed that Hansbrough was going for the ball.

“All you have to do is look at the play,” James said. “He knew exactly what he was headed for. He walked right away, he knew exactly what he’d done, and we just got a free throw and the ball on the side.”